Maritime heritage and urban redevelopment

8. Історизм, що набув поширення у другій половині ХІХ ст., пов’язують з ідеологією романтизму, а відтак зі зміною уявлень про минуле як про джерело образів та ідей, що можуть пояснити теперішнє та спроектувати майбутнє. Пошук аргументів легітимності національної культури в минулому провокує історизацію науки, мистецтва й архітектури зокрема. Цим зумовлене звернення до культурної спад-щини, колажування стилів, образів та ідей стає також і проявом свободи митця, спробою створити ілюзію «нової» реальності як обіцянку здійснення і задоволення витіснених бажань колективного несвідомого.9. Таку «стриманість» репрезентації, очевидно, треба завдячувати авторам: скульптору С. Мерку-рову, архітекторам С. Французу та В. Шарапенку.10. Натомість просторовий характер пам’яті — і індивідуальної, і колективної – одна з найважливіших рис, яка визначає цей феномен. Докладніше на цьому зупиняється в книжці «Пам’ять, історія, за-буття» Поль Рікер (2004), розглядаючи зв’язок між місцями проживання й пам’ятання.11. Подібно про це пише Стефан Беднарек: «Попри помітну відмінність у тлумаченні місць пам’яті, у цьому понятті присутнє значення згущення, конденсації змісту пам’яті навколо якогось феноме-на («пункт кристалізації, pivotal events), що дає змогу сягнути до змісту пам’яті учасників життя спільноти в усіх його вимірах: індивідуальному, суспільному, державно-національному, а також наднаціональному» (Bednarek 2010: 108).

STEVEN COOKE

MARITIME HERITAGE AND URBAN REDEVELOPMENT

The role of heritage in urban redevelopment (Logan 2002) and place promotion (Philo and Kearns 1993; Short 1999), particularly the regeneration of former dock spaces, has been well documented (Marshall 2001; Shaw 2001, Atkinson et al 2002; Dovey 2005; Oakley 2009). As these authors have argued, this transformation usually involves the silencing of unattractive or dissonant pasts whereby ‘to attract the investors, residents and tourists who will gravitate towards the post-industrial city, ‘shadow’ elements have to be contained, controlled and disguised’ (Atkinson et al 2002: 28).

However, these sites are a ‘storehouse for social memories’ (Hayden 1995: 9), key locations in that wider network of places and spaces that make up landscapes of memory (Schama 1996). The question then becomes ‘who has the authority to create, define, interpret and represent collective pasts through place?’ (Till 1999: 253; Smith 2006). Although recent critiques suggest an over emphasis on ‘sites of memory’ (Atkinson 2007) directing us to the ways in which memory work happens throughout the landscape, specific sites are often the focus of intense debates over interpretation, use and management. They are sites where discourses collide, ‘sites of contest or dialogue, they sustain a social memory that articulates civic and personal identities’ (Crang and Travlou 2001: 165).

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STEVEN COOKE · Maritime Heritage and Urban Redevelopment

The redevelopment of South Wharf in Melbourne, the State capital of Victoria, Australia, is one such location where discourses over the city’s post-industrial future and the role of maritime heritage within that imagining, have been played out. In Melbourne, as in many other port cities, changing maritime industrial and mercantile practices have left behind a relic landscape of port facilities that have been transformed from landscapes of production to those of consumption (Buckrich 2002) and the former Duke’s and Orr’s Dry Dock site on Melbourne’s Yarra River is a location through which wider debates about planning and the role of heritage in tourism and urban redevelopment has been enacted.

Heritage sites, like memorials, often keep their own history a closely guarded secret (Young 1995), eliding the decision-making processes that have shaped their use, management and interpretation, and this chapter is an attempt to restore the site’s biography. It explores the different schemes for both the docks and the restored tall ship Polly Woodside that has occupied Duke’s Dock since the late 1970s. The repositioning of Melbourne as a global city, contested notions of significance and the development of understandings of intangible cultural heritage which underpin competing strategies for the restoration of historic ships, saw the Polly Woodside and the docks area defined at various times as both an asset to be used or a ‘problem’ to be solved and these debates raise questions as to the ongoing sustainable management of both maritime industrial heritage and historic vessels.

This is the place for a museum ship

Duke’s and Orr’s Dry Docks are located immediately to the south west of Melbourne’s central business district (CBD) on the Yarra River which runs through the centre of the city. Duke’s Dock opened in 1875 and was in continuous operation as a dry dock until 1975, when the building of a bridge downstream from the docks necessitated its closure. In its century of operation the docks saw thousands of ships docked for repairs and cleaning (Woodley and Botterill 1985). It was hard, dirty, sometimes dangerous work, and the site was the location of some infamous episodes associated with the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union (Lockwood 1990; Morton and Robinson 2010).

The redundant Duke’s dock, with some significant interventions, was thought an ideal site for the nineteenth century barque, Polly Woodside, which was being restored by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) (hereafter National Trust)1. Although other potential final locations for the restored ship were canvassed, the primary consideration was the need for the ship’s periodic dry-docking and Duke’s Dock filled all the criteria (Darroch 1978). As Polly Woodside was to be restored as a museum ship, defined as one that did not sail, the closure of the Yarra River by the Charles Grimes Bridge that effectively cut the ship off from the bay was not considered an issue. Indeed the dock would provide a safe and secure ‘home’ for the ship ‘which would allow her to be effectively restored and maintained as a static, floating exhibit in an appropriate maritime setting’ (Austral Archaeology 2000: 8). The State Government provided the site for the use of the National

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Trust in 1977 to serve as a maritime museum with Polly Woodside as the centrepiece (Schmeder 2005).

The decision to restore Polly Woodside as a static museum ship echoes a number of other projects during this period. Prior to the decision to berth Polly Woodside in Duke’s Dock, proposals in the early 1970s for the restoration of the HMVS Cerberus followed a similar line. The ship, a breastwork monitor class war ship that had served both the pre-Federation Victorian Navy and the Royal Australian Navy, had been scuttled as a breakwater to the south east of Melbourne in the 1920s.2 Under proposals by the Cerberus Preservation Trust (CPT) the ship would be refloated and then taken to Duke’s Dock (CPT 1972). However, the CPT went further than the National Trust in that the vessels would be preserved ‘in the dry’ (out of the water) in the same way as ships such as Cutty Sark, SS Great Britain and HMS Victory. In terms that would become familiar in future plans for the site, the Cerberus museum would be ‘of world standard’ and provide a ‘valuable tourist attraction’ (ibid). Discussions were held between the CPT and the National Trust and the museum was conceived with the long term aim of including Polly Woodside within the site, with the National Trust wishing to ‘fuse the two schemes at a convenient time’ (ibid).

The Cerberus plan also illustrates contemporary understandings of maritime industrial heritage. Although the ‘magnificent old pumps and engines’ of the dry dock were to be retained, the ‘corrugated iron building housing the machinery [was] in a bad state of repair and will be replaced by a new structure to blend with the development style’ (CPT 1972: np). The rest of the site needed a ‘creative and tidy’ approach (ibid). The gritty, dangerous, industrial landscape of the docks was to be softened and made acceptable by ‘the use of lawns, colourful flower beds and selected foliage’ and the use of maritime ephemera such as anchors, capstans and a flagstaff (ibid). The State Government were supportive of the Cerberus proposal, ‘wholeheartedly endors[ing]’ the plan and suggesting that the proposed museum ‘would be the one of the first of its type in the world’ (ibid). However, an appeal to raise the $250,000 for salvage and removal of the ship to its new home made a financial loss, and the move did not go ahead (Herd 1986; Anderson 2002).

The idea that the docks were somewhere to be made safe would continue during subsequent plans for the redevelopment of the area. As stated earlier, the State Government eventually gave the area to the National Trust and the Melbourne Maritime Museum was opened to the public by the Governor of Victoria, Sir Henry Winneke, on 4 March 1978 (Gibson 2006). The National Trust’s approach to the interpretation of the site was similar to that of the CPT: the ship came first, and the wider industrial landscape, although valued, second. During the first years of operation the site enjoyed significant success with a growing reputation for the restoration of the ship and high visitor numbers, with the National Trust claiming that the museum received 140,000 visitors in 1979 (Ellingsen 1980: 9).

The use of maritime heritage in urban redevelopment at this time was, of course, not unique to Melbourne. As Witcomb has shown, the redevelopment of maritime cities such

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as London, Liverpool, Boston and Sydney, relied upon the use of cultural facilities such as museums as a way of attracting investment (Witcomb 2002: 29).3 Such a strategy was clearly evident in Victorian State Government plans for South Wharf. Growing calls for a clean-up of the Yarra River in the early 1980s and for the transformation of Southbank provided the maritime museum with a major opportunity for redevelopment. This would see the site become a key location in debates about the urban regeneration of the former industrial area. In 1980 the State Government commissioned South Wharf District Development Study that aimed to provide a coordinated approach to an area close to the city centre, public transport and the new World Trade Centre on opposite bank of the Yarra River.

The National Trust’s vision for the site was ambitious. Its response to the South Wharf District Development Study Discussion Paper, argued that ‘[a]lthough Melbourne is not a tourist city, tourism here is increasing and because there are fewer competing attractions, a high proportion of tourists will visit Polly Woodside’ (Forge 1980). It continued that ‘[i]t does not seem unlikely that within a decade attendances will approach 200,000 per annum – roughly twice those at present, which would make Polly Woodside one of the top tourist attractions in the state’ (ibid). It also introduced what was to become a familiar narrative within the context of future redevelopment of the area:

While the Polly Woodside is but one of a number of occupiers in the area, it differs from the others in a number of respects. Of these perhaps the most vital is that, alone amongst them, it is physically impossible to relocate her elsewhere. Her future, and that of the museum associated with her, are therefore inextricably tied to whatever the development of the area may bring (ibid. Emphasis added).The Trust’s submission also illustrated ambivalence between the perceived

significance of the dry dock site. While the Trust suggested the site was ‘one of the oldest parts of the original port still retaining some it its maritime character, [and] the area has both historic and atmospheric value which could be built upon with advantage’ (National Trust 1980), elsewhere in the same submission it argued that the although the surrounding area ‘has little of architectural or historical merit, it has a general maritime character in keeping with its status as one of the oldest remaining maritime areas in the city’ (ibid).

The State Government was supportive of the redevelopment, with the then State Premier Lindsay Thompson endorsing the proposal for a Polly Woodside Maritime Park (Thompson nd). Thompson lost office in March 1982 but the incoming Labor Government was also sympathetic, illustrated by the importance placed on the site through the subsequent Development Strategy for Southbank (1986). Polly Woodside and the maritime precinct were still seen as key to the economic regeneration of the area, with the State Government committed ‘to undertake and encourage tourism development to build on existing assets, which include the Arts Centre complex and the Polly Woodside Maritime Museum’ (Ministry for Planning and Environment Victoria 1986). Changing

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understandings of the importance of the area were also evident in the strategy, with the dry docks recommended for inclusion on the Historic Buildings Register in Butler’s 1982 South Bank Architectural and Historical Study. Although its ‘seedy appearance’ (Ministry for Planning and Environment Victoria 1986 p. 17) was thought to negate its rich heritage, the area was identified as a major catalyst for the development of a maritime park.

The National Trust again had bigger ideas for the museum and, with a local Melbourne council, resurrected the idea of moving the Cerberus to South Wharf to lie alongside Polly Woodside. Simon Molesworth, Deputy Chairman of the National Trust in Victoria, suggested that the combined site would become a ‘world class maritime museum…likely draw[ing] hundreds of thousands of people to Melbourne’ (Molesworth 1986). The museum’s visitor numbers and revenue had declined significantly since the late 1970s, with the Trust going public on the ruinous financial position of the museum which it blamed on limited government support and lack of appropriate spaces to lease out for additional income (Austen 1987: 5). The Trust’s plans for the revitalised precinct were in accord with the State Government’s view that the area could be a major cultural precinct. In 1988 it was announced that the State run Melbourne Museum would be shifted from its city centre location to new purpose built accommodation on South Wharf (Dovey 2005). The advantages for the maritime museum were clear: a critical mass of tourism facilities and a rejuvenation of the area. However, the excitement was short lived. Despite construction of the new Melbourne Museum being already well underway, the incoming Liberal-National Coalition Government which took office in 1992, shifted the Melbourne Museum to its present site in Carlton, north of Melbourne’s CBD, and opted instead for an Exhibition Centre on the South Wharf site. As Dovey (2005) suggests, this was a significant shift from ‘culture to commerce’ and one that would prove to have dramatic implications for the Polly Woodside, the maritime museum and the docks.

The building works for the new Exhibition Centre were extensive and included the shortening of the dry dock by 70 metres (Austral Archaeology 2002). The truncated docks, pump house and engines were then added to the Victorian State Heritage Register in 1994 for their historic and scientific significance as the ‘last timber walled dry dock to operate in Australia’, a reminder of the area’s history with ‘associated buildings provid[ing] an important and authentic aspect of the dock's historical context’ (Historic Buildings Council of Victoria 1994). Although the museum and ship stayed open during the construction works the impact on the business was considerable. Visitor numbers fell further due to the difficulties of finding the site with one press report suggesting a ‘cut lunch and compass’ was needed to find it (Attwood, 1995: 13). This period also saw a change in the way that the maritime precinct was viewed, with a lack of consensus of the benefits of the museum to the area. For the first time, the idea was canvassed to move the ship from Duke’s dock: a debate that would resurface periodically over the next twenty-five years. Charles Treleavan, former project manager of Polly Woodside, suggested that proposals by ‘a succession of so-called experts’ to move the ship were doomed to failure. Moves were ‘unrealistic’: not only would such a move be prohibitively expensive and

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potentially damaging to the ship, but Treleavan also questioned the motivations for the move. Making the ship more visually accessible, he suggested, would be ‘commercial suicide…. So let’s forget about making historic ships birdbaths at the bottom of an architectural garden unless ongoing funding is part of the deal’ (Treleavan 1993: 16).

The reorientation of the museum site throughout 1994-5 which included the National Trust gaining control of wharf sheds on the Yarra River for new exhibition spaces and a maintenance workshop did not have the desired effect on visitor numbers or revenue and by 2002 new proposals for the site had once more been developed. Losing money, the Trust proposed that the historic wharf sheds should be leased out to provide an income stream, and funds sought from government to improve the site once more. Various sums were suggested for the transformation, but the message was clear: in the words of National Trust Chair Randall Bell, ‘If we don’t get the help, the doors will have to come down and I don’t think Victoria can afford to lose it’ (quoted in Butler 2002: 15. See also Rose 2002). The supposed condition of the ship was also used as a way of applying pressure of the government. The following year, giving journalists licence to pun (‘Polly has a crack or two’), the new Chief Executive Officer of the National Trust, Stephen Hare, stressed the urgency of works to stop leaks in the hull, stating: ‘Ultimately it will sink…nobody knows when’ (quoted in Edmund 2003: 14).

In addition, the 2000 Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for the site guided changes to the interpretation. Added importance was given to the docks and the industrial heritage of the area and Polly Woodside would be interpreted within that context. In the statement of cultural significance for the complex, the site was ‘an important surviving relic of the formerly extensive shipbuilding and repair industry that extended along the south bank of the river’ and also home to a ‘good example of a three masted barque, the Polly Woodside, which is an important historic vessel in its own right and which adds to the maritime character of the area’ (Austral Archaeology 2000: i, emphasis added). The CMP stated that the industrial maritime landscape was ‘an important “artefact” of cultural heritage in its own right. Appropriate interpretation is necessary so that its significance becomes readily apparent rather than being seen by visitors simply as housing for the maritime displays and artefacts’ (ibid: 32). The change from earlier conceptualisations is clear: rather than the site providing an appropriate maritime setting for Polly Woodside, the ship would now provide context to the site. The CMP reinscribed the site’s ‘shadow elements’ in proposing an interpretation scheme that was industrial, gritty and more in keeping with the history of the site rather than the romantic age of sail.

Given the Trust’s own pronouncements on the condition of the ship, it is unsurprising that before long before suggestions for moving Polly Woodside recirculated, both from within the wider maritime heritage community and in the press. The fates of the Cerberus and Polly were conjoined once more by the Sunday Herald Sun who proposed ‘lifting the sailing ship Polly Woodside over the Spencer Street and King Street bridges to take her place alongside Cerberus in the Turning Basis. The significant maritime precinct would then regain its special status in a city that owes its establishment and development

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to sea-borne trade’ (Sunday Herald Sun 2004: 70. See MHAV 2004 and subsequent editions for community responses).

The constant change and uncertainty that had typified the museum since the early 1980s was set to continue. In December 2004 it was announced that the final piece of the Southbank redevelopment would be completed, with three consortia being selected to tender for the development of the new convention centre immediately to the south of the Polly Woodside and adjacent to the exhibition centre (Batchelor & Pandazopoulos 2004), with Plenary Conventions Pty Ltd finally being awarded the contract in early 2006. Premier Steve Bracks claimed that the convention centre would revitalise Melbourne’s lower Southbank and ‘complete the urban renewal of the Yarra’s edge linking Southbank to Docklands…creating a commercial and lifestyle district down the river’s spine to the bay’s edge and port districts’ (Mickelburough and Giles 2006: p. 2). The Polly Woodside museum site would also ‘be revitalised with help from the National Trust’ (ibid). The building of the convention centre necessitated the closure of the museum to allow proposed work on the dry dock and a new museum building, but raised further concerns about the safety of the ship. In addition, different understandings of appropriate strategies for the conservation of maritime cultural heritage were also highlighted by the visit of another tall ship at the same time. The James Craig, a Sydney-based three masted barque of similar age and design to Polly Woodside, but which had been restored to sailing condition after a thirty-year project, visited Melbourne in April 2006.4 The visit was co-sponsored by the National Trust and a new organisation, Tall Ships Victoria (TSV) set up to promote sailing vessels in the State. On the James Craig’s arrival some rather wistful discussion focussed on an imaginary race between James Craig and Polly Woodside (Parberry 2006), and which illustrated differing conceptions of the conservation process as ‘although Polly is yet to be restored to the same glorious sea-going condition that James is in....We hope that Victorians will one day enjoy the same delights that we have, and they are challenged to a race, once their beautiful barque is set free to sail again’ (ibid, emphasis added).5

The narrative of Polly Woodside as ‘prisoner’ was continued within the context of the convention centre development. A spokesperson for TSV stated that the convention centre would ‘hem the ship into its dock forever’ and criticised the National Trust for not having done enough to protect the ship’s future (Kleinman 2006: 6). The Age’s editorial echoed the desire to move Polly Woodside downstream, repeating TSV’s claims that she would be ‘stuck’ in the dock, and continued that the promise [of a revitalised museum] would carry far more weight if it included an assurance that the Polly Woodside, the last Victorian tall ship, will sail again’ (The Age 2006: 10).

Despite this campaign, the State Government refused to provide financial support to move Polly Woodside downstream, perhaps concerned about the future management and use of the docks without the iconic ship, ending discussion for the time being on the potential restoration of the ship to sailing condition. The proposed redevelopment of the maritime museum precinct went ahead, lasting four years and costing approximately $13

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million. The project included major work on Duke’s Dock that allowed the ship to be dry docked for the first time since the 1970s, conservation work on the Polly Woodside and new interpretive spaces. The pump house was partially deconstructed and encased in a steel and glass structure, echoing the design elements of the new convention centre and effectively hidden from view (Figure 1).

The site reopened in December 2010 as ‘Polly Woodside – Melbourne’s tall ship story’. Using familiar narratives, the site was the ‘flagship of Melbourne’s maritime precinct’ which would be ‘a boost for our economy and for tourism, delivering more local jobs and encouraging more visitors to South Wharf and our unique maritime precinct’ (Asher 2010) and was expected to receive 100,000 visitors per annum (ibid).

The new convention centre made little difference to the likelihood of Polly Woodside’s relocation: the building of the Charles Grimes Bridge having meant that it had effectively been ‘stuck’ since the ship entered the dock in 1978. However, the repetition of ‘static’ and ‘stuck’ in discussions surrounding the future of the ship in 2006 highlight changing approaches to the conservation of historic vessels, typified by the development of the 2001 ‘European charter for the conservation and restoration of traditional ships in operation’ (the ‘Barcelona Charter’) and in line with changes to conservation practices more generally, particular the growing importance placed on intangible cultural heritage (Ruggles and Silverman 2009). What underpins these discussions are contested notions of authenticity and the appropriate use of historic vessels, with different emphases placed at different times on the historic, aesthetic, technological and social significance of the ship. This is particularly evident in the differences of approach to the James Craig and Polly Woodside restorations: according to commentators James Craig was ‘fully restored’, whereas Polly Woodside was passive, trapped, less than a ship, because of the inability to sail. The question then becomes what are we trying to preserve and why? (Tanner nd). The interventions in the heritage fabric needed to restore historic ships to

Figure 1. Polly Woodside in Duke’s dock, September 2012. Photo by the author (27.09.2012).

Note the new Convention Centre on the right, with the pump house’s corrugated iron cladding just visible through the glass.

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operational status are considerable and such interventions can see them become no more than a (very expensive) replica of the original. The dichotomy between ‘operational historic sailing vessel’ and ‘museum ship’, between conserving intangible and tangible heritage needs to be critically examined, with the acceptance of multiple approaches to conserving cultural significance (ibid). Although the undoubted attraction of seeing Polly Woodside sailing on Port Philip Bay has been lost and the former industrial landscape of the dry docks has been sanitised in the area’s continued transformation to a global meeting place, the National Trust’s solution at least allows for the cultural significance of the ship as museum and the dock as a working space to be maintained.

Conclusions

This chapter has charted the relationship between the dry docks complex and Polly Woodside in debates over the redevelopment of Melbourne’s South Wharf. Apart from the earliest days of operation, the site has struggled financially, lacking a sustainable income source from either visitor admissions or ongoing government support and has been in an almost constant state of flux. From a key element in the urban redevelopment ‘solution’ for a marginal deindustrialised area, the ship and site themselves became marginalised within the proposals for the area, precipitated by the changing focus from cultural precinct to commercial precinct in the 1990s. Although similar discourses of rejuvenation were still part of government rhetoric on the reopening of the site in 2010, the ‘shadow’ of the site has once again been all but removed.

As Atkinson (2007: 522) suggests heritage is ‘a pliable resource: often exploited by interest groups and offering ideologically laden histories to serve capital, tourism or the local or national state’. The focus on the industrial heritage of the area, particularly the gritty, dirty, unkempt interpretation that followed from the 2000 CMP and which highlighted the global networks of trade illustrated by the dry docks and that make Polly Woodside remarkable in her ordinariness, were discordant with the new global meeting place of the new Convention Centre. It is an irony that although the design of the centre incorporates maritime themes (O’Dell 2009) the significance of wider industrial landscape is hardly mentioned within the new centre. The former dock pump house has been carefully housed and contained, made safe in a museum-like glass case, disconnecting it from the surrounding landscape, and with wooden edging hiding the dilapidated dry dock. Despite suggestions that the Convention Centre has a ‘distinctly “Melbourne” look and feel about it, blending effortlessly into the existing landscape like it has always been there’ (ibid), the ‘existing landscape’ it blends with is that of the exhibition centre, rather than the relic maritime industrial landscape of Duke’s and Orr’s dock.

The value placed on the dry docks has ebbed and flowed during the past 40 years. From a fitting backdrop to both Cerberus and/ or Polly Woodside, to a key node in the network of Melbourne’s extant industrial maritime heritage, the site now appears to be once more a support for the ship, of contributory significance rather than significant in its own right. The

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2006-2010 redevelopment and the interventions in the dock do however allow Polly Woodside to be periodically dry docked and maintained. The ship is floating once more in a working dry dock and although not the State Maritime Museum many had envisaged during the museum’s over thirty years in operation, the site provides a space where the traditional skills needed to conserve historic vessels can be practiced and showcased to a wide audience. Despite ongoing concerns over the conservation of the site’s industrial maritime heritage, the National Trust’s original vision of a ‘safe home’ for the Polly Woodside has been realised.

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Notes

1. Polly Woodside typifies the once extensive fleet of sailing ships carrying bulk cargo around the world in the nineteenth century. Built in Belfast in 1885, the ship carried non-perishable goods between the UK, South America, and also North America, Africa, New Zealand and Australia for almost 50 years, first as Polly Woodside and then, after being sold to a New Zealand company in 1904 and renamed Rona. Dismantled in 1923, the ship then served as a coal hulk (refuelling barge) in the Port of Melbourne (Gibson 2006), before being sold in 1968 to the National Trust. The ship underwent extensive restoration, primarily using volunteer labour at South Wharf, on the Yarra River in Melbourne. The ship was awarded the World Ship Trust Medal in 1988 — only the seventh ship, and the first merchant ship, to be given that honour, joining at that time, inter alia, the Vasa, the Mary Rose, and HMS Warrior as examples of outstanding historic ship preservation (see <http://www.worldshiptrust.org> viewed 29/9/12). In 2007 Polly Woodside was added to the Victorian Heritage Register as ‘a rare surviving example, and one of the best examples of the world, of a nineteenth century barque rigged, iron-hulled, ocean-going trading vessel’ (Heritage Council of Victoria 2007). For extensive histories of the ship, see Darroch 1978 and Gibson 2006.2. For more information on the HMVS Cerberus, including current conservation initiatives, see http://www.cerberus.com.au/ (visited 25/9/12)3. The rhetoric of Sydney’s Darling Harbour redevelopment as a ‘place for the people’ (Witcomb 2002) seems notably absent within plans for the redevelopment of Melbourne’s South Wharf, which focussed on the economic benefits of the area’s transformation, rather than an opening up of new public space. What is evident however, is the privileging of the volunteers’ relationship with place in numerous articles in the press, and also the National Trust’s statement of significance for Polly Woodside. The interrelationships between economic discourse and the volunteers’ personal, emotional, embodied engagement with the site will be the subject of a future paper.4. For more information on the James Craig and the Sydney Heritage Fleet, see http://www.shf.org.au/ (visited 25/9/12)5. The same sentiments were repeated when the James Craig visited Melbourne again in 2008. ‘In this scribe's view, it is sad that Melbourne sees a good 19th Century working barque, sitting, deteriorating, in a small flooded dry dock in the city, as a (very) static asset to the new building development along that city side bank of the Yarra. How much more worthwhile to get the old working barque Polly Woodside down river for restoration and ocean sailing once more. But enough of my dreaming’. http://www.shf.org.au/SpecEv/08SydMelb.html (visited 25/9/12.)

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